Medical Tourism

Medical tourism, is defined as the practice of traveling to another country to obtain health care. The basic idea is that people travel to another country for health care based on two main reasons; price and/or quality. Other significant factors include convenience (one-stop shop), availability of traditional Chinese medicine, and of course, service. Singapore is competing for a good share of the medical tourism market, and claims to be Asia's leading medical hub, with nine hospitals and two medical centers that have obtained Joint Commission International accreditation.

First and foremost, in order for a service provider to market itself, it has to identify Singapore's strengths and weaknesses. Singapore's key strengths include; price, distance (from our regional neighbours), convenience (availability of traditional Chinese medicine), assurance of efficient and safe healthcare, and service quality.

In terms of price, a knee-cap replacement operation can cost three times as much in United States as compared to Singapore. However, we are not the cheapest either; Thailand and India offers similar operations as low as a third of our prices here. In terms of distance, we are very close to our biggest clients; Indonesia and Malaysia. Closer proximity directly means cheaper airfares, shorter flights, and greater convenience.

Traditional Chinese medicine is recently becoming more popular within the Western cultures, especially in acupuncture. Being a Chinese dominated country, Singapore is a one-stop shop for foreigners seeking TCM, along with Hong Kong and Shanghai. However, we have the upper-edge, due to our country's proficiency with the English language.

Do you know that our donated blood packets are carefully audited before heading to the blood banks? Singapore's healthcare and service standards are among the highest in the world, making sure that the patients are properly taken care of; from the drugs administered, to the service given.

Moving on to Singapore's weaknesses, it is undeniable that we are a small country with high accommodation rates, as well as limited entertainment. Patients seeking a treatment that requires a long term of stay for check-ups and recovery might be deterred against the relatively high prices of hotels and service apartments. Another weakness is that the global awareness of Singapore as a medical hub is relatively low; only a few operations are globally known, such as the separation of conjoined twins and tooth-in-eye surgery.

In 2005, 374,000 visitors came to Singapore purely to seek healthcare. The bulk of these visitors are from Indonesia and Malaysia, followed by rest of SEA, India, and China. Patients from the U.S. are also starting to choose Singapore for our relatively affordable health care services and our appeal as a clean cosmopolitan country. Why do these foreigners prefer Singapore? Indonesia and Malaysia are our immediate neighbours, making distance a key factor. Other factors include price, the availability of TCM, the high standards of healthcare, the service quality, and the efficiency of our healthcare system (U.S. patients have to wait for years for surgeries like knee-cap replacements).

Equipped with the knowledge of our target market, their preferences, and our key strengths, how can service providers here differentiate ourselves from our competitors; Thailand, Hong Kong, and India? Thailand is known for being extremely low priced, and good healthcare standards, however, it is a non-English dominated country, and is relatively less clean than Singapore. Hong Kong has excellent healthcare standards that even surpasses our own, and the availability of TCM, however, it is also a non-English dominated country. Lastly, we have India, whose key strengths lies in their price as well as their range of services, however, their service quality varies.

Singapore's service providers can differentiate ourselves based on convenience (one-stop shop), as well as quality